The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it will close 149 air traffic control towers, in a move one lawmaker said was akin to "removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads."

That lawmaker, Republican Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, also claims the FAA could save the towers by tapping into millions of dollars in unspent FAA research money.

Yet the FAA moved forward Friday with plans to shut down the air traffic control facilities, describing them as a necessary cutback due to the sequester.

"These were very tough decisions," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a written statement.

The cuts will affect small airports starting April 7. The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers under procedures that all pilots are trained to carry out. The FAA decided to keep open 24 towers that were on the original list of possible closures.